The demotion of Lyn Truss to Chief Secretary to the Treasury stands out as the only senior casualty in the mini reshuffle following the general election. She has paid the price of the fury caused by her lacklustre defence of a judiciary dubbed ’Enemies of the People’ by the right-wing press over the Article 50 case.

David Lidington was elected Member of Parliament for Aylesbury in 1992 and has held a number of positions including Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2003 to 2007 and Shadow Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2007 to 2010
He served as Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) from May 2010 until July 2016, the longest-serving Europe Minister in British history. He was Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council from July 2016 to June 2017. He was a staunch member of the Remain campaign.

Lidington has generally voted against laws to promote equality and human rights. In May last year he voted in favour of repealing the Human Rights Act 1998. He has also consistently voted against allowing terminally ill people to be given assistance to end their life. He has generally voted against gay rights and voted against allowing same-sex couples to marry.

Lidington has also consistently voted in favour of restricting the scope of legal aid, and for allowing national security-sensitive evidence to be put before courts in secret sessions.

His voting record also shows support for stronger enforcement of immigration rules and mass surveillance of people’s communications and activities.

Commenting on Sunday Lidington said: “Democracy and freedom are built on the rule of law, and are protected by a strong and independent judiciary. I look forward to taking my Oath as Lord Chancellor, and to working with the Lord Chief Justice and his fellow judges in the months ahead, to ensure that justice is fairly administered and robustly defended.”

In May 2009, the Daily Telegraph revealed Lidington had claimed nearly £1,300 for his dry cleaning and had also claimed for toothpaste, shower gel, body spray and vitamin supplements on his second home allowance. He decided to repay the claims for the toiletries, saying: “I accept that many people would see them as over-generous.” He was also criticised by local newspaper the Bucks Herald for claiming £115,891 in expenses in one year, almost double his salary.

]]>http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/new-lord-chancellor/feed0Legal aid for prisonershttp://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/legal-aid-for-prisoners
http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/legal-aid-for-prisoners#commentsTue, 11 Apr 2017 15:04:27 +0000http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/?p=2893The government has lost an important battle in the court of appeal over access to legal aid. Denying prisoners in England and Wales legal aid so they can effectively challenge the conditions under which they are held could be illegal, the court has ruled.

In R (Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prisoners’ Advice Service) v the Lord Chancellor, the court of appeal judges – Lord Justice Leveson, Lord Justice Tomlinson and Lady Justice Sharp – considered five areas of prison law where the Ministry of Justice removed criminal legal aid eligibility in December 2013.

The restrictions were introduced under the 2012 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act which took away from prisoners legal aid to pay for representation and advice in parole board cases about moving towards open conditions and thereby eventual release, eligibility for places in mother and baby units, inmate segregation, resettlement and licence conditions as well as certain disciplinary proceedings.

“There could be a significant number of individuals subject to these types of decisions for whom it may be very difficult to participate effectively without support from someone,” Sir Brian Leveson explained in the judgment. “It is arguable, therefore, that without the potential for access to appropriate assistance, the system could carry an unacceptable risk of unfair, and therefore unlawful, decision making.”

In a unanimous decision the judges have granted two charities – the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prisoners’ Advice Service (PAS) – permission to bring a fresh case questioning the legality of budgetary restrictions introduced by the Ministry of Justice. A challenge by the Howard League and PAS was blocked by the high court in March 2014, a decision here overturned by the court of appeal judges.

The government insists it is not obliged immediately to reinstate legal aid for prisoners following this “unprecedented and groundbreaking” judgment. A full hearing of the issues before the court of appeal has been scheduled for next spring.

Following the judgment, a spokesperson for the MoJ said: “We welcome the fact that the court has narrowed what was a wide-ranging claim to just one issue. Legal aid is taxpayers’ money and should be used where really necessary, not for issues from prisoners that can be fairly dealt with by other means. We will continue to argue this point in court.”

Deborah Russo, the joint managing solicitor at PAS, is reported as saying: “We are delighted with the outcome of today’s hearing. The legal aid cuts to prison law have resulted in prisoners’ access to justice being severely curtailed with the consequence of further isolating an already very marginalised sector of our society.”

Frances Crook, the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, was similarly upbeat, saying: “We welcome today’s decision, which offers hope to children and young people in prison. The Howard League’s legal team has represented many hundreds of children in prison and we want them to thrive inside and on release. Legal aid gets them the best help to achieve that.”

The policy could now join an embarrassing list of measures launched by then justice secretary Chris Grayling which have ended up on the scrapheap. From banning books for prisoners to pressing for removal of client choice and slashing of legal aid, he has left a poisonous heritage for his successors. Subservient to Chancellor Osborne’s austerity programme, he conceded dangerous cuts in the prison service, all the while denying that there was crisis. To clear up the mess, justice secretary Liz Truss has had to offer substantial – and divisive – pay rises. Never was there such a clear example of the false economies of the austerity programme.

]]>http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/legal-aid-for-prisoners/feed0Reforming the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Schemehttp://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/reforming-the-advocates-graduated-fee-scheme-2
http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/reforming-the-advocates-graduated-fee-scheme-2#commentsThu, 16 Feb 2017 10:30:43 +0000http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/?p=2866The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has issued a consultation paper which sets out proposals for the reform of the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme (AGFS). This scheme pays advocates to defend clients in the Crown Court. The current AGFS scheme was last subject to major change in 2007.

In his introduction to the consultation, Sir Oliver Heald QC MP, Minister of State for Courts and Justice, said: “Sir Brian Leveson has produced an outstanding blueprint for the modernisation of our criminal proceedings system. His reforms are already beginning to transform the criminal justice system to reflect the new reality that we face. It is vital that we update the way that we pay criminal defence advocates to reflect this reality too. Our current payment system does not focus enough on the skilled advocacy that barristers and solicitor advocates demonstrate in the Crown Court. I want to change that.”

According to the Government, the AGFS relies too heavily on Pages of Prosecution Evidence (PPE), served by the Crown Prosecution Service, as a means of deciding how complex individual cases are, and therefore how much a defence advocate should be paid. The current scheme also relies on the number of witnesses to help determine the fee to be paid.

The justice system is changing, and new forms of evidence are becoming critical features of many criminal cases. The counting of pages, and counting of new forms of electronic evidence, converted to “pages” is held to be no longer the most effective way of assessing how much work an advocate needs to do in an individual case, and therefore how much that advocate should be paid.

The proposed scheme claims to reduce reliance on counting pages, and instead would introduce a more sophisticated system of classifying offences, based on the typical amount of work required in each case. The time spent in court, conducting the advocacy upon which the justice system relies, would also become a more important driver for the fee paid. It is designed to be cost neutral, “with no intention to reduce or increase the overall cost envelope.”

While encouraging as many members as possible to respond to the proposals, the Law Society asserts that MoJ plans to impose cuts of up to £30 million on criminal defence solicitors. The proposed cuts come less than a month after the MoJ published proposals that will see QCs’ fees rise by 10% at the expense of other criminal advocates. The MoJ will reduce payments to advocates appointed by the court to cross-examine alleged victims of abuse from private rates to legal aid rates, and will make changes to the Litigators Graduated Fee Scheme (LGFS) which will slash payments for paper-heavy Crown Court cases. Criminal solicitors simply cannot afford to absorb any further cuts.

James Parry, chair of the Law Society’s Criminal Legal Aid Committee, said that these cuts are unnecessary and ill-timed, given the long term project to reform the litigator fee scheme, which will ultimately remove reliance on the pages of evidence which are creating this problem. As the Society will be working with the MoJ on this longer term project “it is unwise to impose short-term cuts on the scheme before that project has even started.”

“The Ministry has extensive independent evidence from consultants that demonstrates that solicitors’ businesses cannot afford to absorb further cuts, and there is a substantial risk that these cuts will drive a significant number of firms into insolvency,” said Parry.

“We recognise that the MoJ has concerns about the use of paper as a proxy for determining fees in the Crown Court,” he said. “With so much evidence now being video or data evidence, we have long shared those concerns. This is why we lobbied the Legal Aid Agency to start discussions about revisions to the LGFS to reflect the reality of Crown Court cases today. It is deeply disappointing that the MoJ is making ill-considered ad hoc changes to the scheme when those discussions are ongoing and making good progress.”

Parry concluded: “This is not a rational approach. The Government needs to tackle the problem at source. It cannot keep responding to every change in the criminal justice system by slashing the fees paid to lawyers.”

]]>http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/reforming-the-advocates-graduated-fee-scheme-2/feed0LASPO Reviewhttp://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/laspo-review
http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/laspo-review#commentsFri, 20 Jan 2017 16:52:51 +0000http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/?p=2857At last the Ministry of Justice has announced that the government has set the ball rolling on the long-awaited review of its controversial legal aid reforms.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO), which came into force in April 2013, made savage cuts to the scope of legal aid. Civil legal aid became no longer available for cases involving divorce, child custody, clinical negligence, welfare, employment, immigration, housing, debt, benefit and education.

At this week’s all-party parliamentary group meeting on legal aid, the justice minister Sir Oliver Heald QC, set out the government’s timetable for the review. A post-legislative memorandum on LASPO will be sent to the justice select committee before May, ahead of a full post-implementation review of the Act to be conducted by April 2018.

Sir Oliver said the government intended to work closely with the sector’s stakeholders over the course of the full post-implementation review in order to inform its conclusions. “We intend to outline our plans in more detail about a review when we present the memorandum to parliament. What we envisage is that the memorandum and review will provide us with a robust evidence-based picture of the current legal aid landscape and how it has changed since LASPO.”

Heald said that the ministry plans to submit a post-legislative memorandum on LASPO ‘as a whole’ to the justice select committee. This process has to be done by May but he said the ministry hopes to do it before then. He added that the memorandum will cover the whole act, including part one. “It will look at how the Act has been affected by litigation, how it was implemented, and will consider the various reviews of legal aid that have taken place since LASPO, by bodies such as the National Audit Office and others,” said Sir Oliver. “This will lead to an initial assessment of the extent to which changes to legal aid met their objectives, which is the test for a post-legislative memorandum.”

He added: “We intend to outline our plans in more detail about a review when we present the memorandum to parliament. What we envisage is that the memorandum and review will provide us with a robust evidence-based picture of the current legal aid landscape and how it has changed since LASPO.” Heald said the government intends to work ‘closely and collaboratively’ with other parties. It will outline more detailed plans about the review when it presents the memorandum to parliament.

Cuts to legal aid have left many without access to justice. One of the effects of reduced legal aid is the rise in the number of litigants in person, which has caused an increase in court delays. The number of people going to court without a lawyer has been rising since access to legal aid was cut. The less well off and those with children are more heavily represented in those litigating in person than any other group. Reductions in legal advice services raise grave concerns about the creation of “advice deserts” and vulnerable people unable to get the advice they desperately need.

Research by the charity Citizens Advice has revealed that the stress, responsibility and loneliness of going to court without representation can mean ‘Litigants in person’ (LiPS) achieve worse outcomes compared with their represented counterparts.

It also showed 90% of people who had been LiPS found the experience negatively affected their health, relationships, work or finances. Figures from the MoJ in October 2016 reveal that in 80% of family court cases, at least one individual had no lawyer.

]]>http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/laspo-review/feed0Family courts allow abusers to torment their victimshttp://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/family-courts-allow-abusers-to-torment-their-victims
http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/family-courts-allow-abusers-to-torment-their-victims#commentsFri, 13 Jan 2017 12:59:57 +0000http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/?p=2854The head of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, has called for a bar on victims of domestic violence being cross-examined by the alleged perpetrators in court. The practice is not permitted in criminal courts. He said: “Reform is required. I would welcome a bar. But the judiciary cannot provide this, because it requires primary legislation and would involve public expenditure. It is therefore a matter for ministers.”

Liz Truss, the justice secretary, is said to share his concerns about how the family courts can enable perpetrators of domestic abuse to continue their intimidation and harassment through the court system. A senior Ministry of Justice source said: “This is a matter we are extremely concerned about and looking at as a matter of urgency.”

Comprehensive evidence obtained by the ‘Guardian’ has revealed how the family court allows men with criminal convictions for abusing their ex-partners to directly question them; is able to ignore restraining orders imposed by the criminal courts to protect the women; and allows fathers, no matter how violent or abusive, to repeatedly pursue contact with children and their mothers. The evidence also shows that the family court can ignore expert evidence that women are at risk from abusive men and fails to adequately protect vulnerable victims of domestic and sexual abuse.

Women are often cross-examined by violent ex-partners in secretive civil court hearings. Those who speak out risk being held in contempt of court for discussing what went on in their private court hearings, but said they wanted to shine a light on what was going on in the system.

The immediate problem is another of Chris Grayling’s chickens coming home to roost. To satisfy the austerity demands of George Osborne (remember him?) Grayling took the axe to his department’s budget. Legal aid is now denied in most family cases. The main exception is for a victim of domestic abuse. Cuts of more than 30% are crippling access to all sorts of justice.

The number of people going to court without a lawyer has been rising since access to legal aid was cut severely in 2013. The less well off and those with children are more heavily represented in those litigating in person than any other group.

Research by the charity Citizens Advice has revealed that the stress, responsibility and loneliness of going to court without representation can mean ‘Litigants in person’ (LiPS) achieve worse outcomes compared with their represented counterparts.

It also showed 90% of people who had been LiPS found the experience negatively affected their health, relationships, work or finances. Figures from the MoJ in October 2016 reveal that in 80% of family court cases, at least one individual had no lawyer.

The justice secretary has set up an emergency review to find the quickest way to ban perpetrators of domestic abuse from directly cross-examining their victims within the family court system. The research paper being prepared is due to be completed by the end of next week. It will examine whether primary legislation is necessary to end perpetrator cross-examination, or whether it could be stopped through the provision of more legal aid.

]]>http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/family-courts-allow-abusers-to-torment-their-victims/feed0Reforming the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Schemehttp://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/reforming-the-advocates-graduated-fee-scheme
http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/reforming-the-advocates-graduated-fee-scheme#commentsMon, 09 Jan 2017 14:15:10 +0000http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/?p=2847The MoJ has published a consultation paper on a modernised advocates’ graduated fee scheme (AGFS). The scheme, which was last reformed in 2007, pays criminal defence advocates legal aid for representing those accused of crimes in the Crown court.

Introducing the new proposals, justice minister Sir Oliver Heald said: “Our current payment system does not focus enough on the skilled advocacy that barristers and solicitor advocates demonstrate in the Crown Court. I want to change that. The measures in this consultation package, developed with the assistance of representatives from across the legal profession, set out a simpler, fairer and more modern alternative.”

According to the consultation paper: “Government also considers that the existing arrangements are unnecessarily complicated, for advocates and administrators alike. We understand that it can often be unclear to an advocate what their fee will be at the point of taking on a case. The current scheme can be inflexible, especially when new offences are established.

“The AGFS relies too heavily on Pages of Prosecution Evidence (PPE), served by the Crown Prosecution Service, as a means of deciding how complex individual cases are – and therefore how much a defence advocate should be paid. The current scheme also relies on the number of witnesses to help determine the fee to be paid.”

It goes on to say: “Our justice system is changing, and new forms of evidence are becoming critical features of many criminal cases. The counting of pages, and counting of new forms of electronic evidence, converted to ‘pages’ is no longer the most effective way of assessing how much work an advocate needs to do in an individual case, and therefore how much that advocate should be paid.”

The proposed scheme claims to reduce reliance on counting pages, and instead would introduce a more sophisticated system of classifying offences, based on the typical amount of work required in each case. The time spent in court, conducting the advocacy upon which the justice system relies, would also become a more important driver for the fee paid. However PPE will continue to feature in drugs and dishonesty cases.

Francis FitzGibbon QC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, welcomed the proposals. She said: “By the linking of fees to the type of case, advocates will see their earnings rise as they progress to more complex and demanding trial work. That should help us recruit and retain talented people who would be otherwise tempted into better-paid work.” But the optimism is tempered: “No scheme can be perfect – you will find flaws in this one. There is no new money, and no recognition that rates have declined sharply in real terms over the last twenty years.”

On the other hand the Law Society of England and Wales has written to the MoJ to inform them that it will cease its involvement in the AGFS working group because of a concern about a lack of openness and transparency and the inability to share the documentation provided by the MoJ with the Society’s expert committee to get their views. Law Society president Robert Bourns said: “Our working group members had concerns about late changes to proposals, but were not permitted to discuss those concerns on a confidential basis with the Society’s expert committee. As we are unable to discuss with our expert committee, the Society feels unable to continue to participate in this working group.”

He added “We will of course engage fully in the public consultation process”, which continues until 2nd March 2017 .

]]>http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/reforming-the-advocates-graduated-fee-scheme/feed0Personal Injuries proposalshttp://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/personal-injuries-proposals
http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/personal-injuries-proposals#commentsWed, 23 Nov 2016 16:38:23 +0000http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/?p=2813In a move described as ‘heavy handed, excessive, and disastrous’ the Ministry of Justice announced last week that it plans to either scrap the right to compensation or, alternatively, put a cap on the amount people can claim for minor soft-tissue injuries. Capping whiplash compensation would see the average pay-out cut from £1,850 to a maximum amount of £425.

MoJ also said it would raise the limit for cases in the small claims court for all personal injury claims from £1,000 to £5,000.Justice secretary, Liz Truss, said: “For too long some have exploited a rampant compensation culture and seen whiplash claims an easy payday, driving up costs for millions of law-abiding motorists. These reforms will crack down on minor, exaggerated, and fraudulent claims.”

Writing in the ‘Gazettre’ John Hyde said “Truss is a ‘compensation culture’ devotee – and she is about to wreak vengeance on the personal injury sector… (the) announcement is a disaster for claimant injury lawyers.”

Simon Kirby, the economic secretary to the Treasury, said: “One whiplash claim is paid out every sixty seconds and it is unacceptable that responsible motorists have to pick up the tab. We are tackling the incentives which have created this compensation culture so that all drivers can save money on their motor insurance policies.”

Kennedys partner and motor insurance specialist Ian Davies said: “The news to proceed with the reforms to crackdown on whiplash claims will come as a significant boost to many insurers and a severe blow to many in the claimant market, who were no more than a month ago celebrating the reforms being seemingly shelved.”

The MoJ has also launched a consultation on proposals designed to reduce the number of whiplash claims and allow insurers to cut premiums. The MoJ says the current number of whiplash claims is “unacceptably high” and confirmed that insurers have pledged to pass on savings to drivers – worth a total of £1bn, around £40 per motorist. Whiplash claims are 50 percent higher than a decade ago.

The consultation proposes four central changes and also asks for views on a wide range of other measures. According to the ‘Gazette’ the key measures are:

Reduce or scrap damages for soft-tissue injury claims. Minor injuries would be classed as lasting either up to six or nine months.

Damages for injuries lasting longer than six or nine months should be graded and fixed according to duration. Minor injuries would receive £400 damages plus £25 for psychological impact. Injuries lasting 19-24 months will have a £3,600 tariff.

The small claims limit will rise to at least £5,000. The government’s preferred option is to apply to this to all personal injury claims. A figure above £5,000 is not ruled out. This is the only key measure that would not require primary legislation.

A ban on all pre-medical offers to settle. The only question appears whether this should apply only to RTA claims, what exemptions there should be, and how it would be enforced.

The consultation will run until 6 January 2017 and the short consultation period has been criticised for placing pressure on all concerned to evaluate the proposed measures.

]]>http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/personal-injuries-proposals/feed0Contingent Legal Aid Fundhttp://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/contingent-legal-aid-fund
http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/contingent-legal-aid-fund#commentsMon, 21 Nov 2016 08:49:26 +0000http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/?p=2807The Bar Council, the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) and the Law Society of England and Wales have joined forces to set up a joint working group to examine the viability of a contingent legal aid fund (CLAF).

The aim is to see whether a CLAF is a worthwhile option to complement existing forms of litigation funding, with the objective of providing access to justice at lower cost and/or in ways not yet provided for by other means.

Preliminary investigations indicated substantial confusion over the nature and purpose of a CLAF with mixed views as to its utility and/or viability. The working party formed an early view that in order to be self-sustaining, a CLAF will need either substantial initial seed funding or, with limited seed funding, would need to start with a relatively small pool of cases.

It also became clear to the working party that to be self-sustaining, cases would need to be selected on the basis of a rigorous merits test and confidence that the claims would be of sufficient value and with good prospects of recoverability of any award of damages and costs.

The working party also formed a preliminary conclusion that, at least at the outset, it would not be possible to support either low-value cases or cases with less-good prospects of success, although in future the CLAF might be able to fund a small proportion of deserving cases or test cases which would otherwise not be viable.

The overall conclusion was that, without government funding or substantial voluntary donations, the CLAF would need to generate consistent surpluses to build up a long term fund and would not be able to look for further funding except on the back of a successful record of achievement. It was likely that, in the absence of very substantial initial funding, a CLAF would need to obtain support from an established organisation or litigation funder to avoid the costs of establishing the necessary infrastructure to access and manage a suitable volume of viable cases.

In the light of these views and uncertainty as to the perceived attractiveness of a CLAF, both to the profession and to prospective litigants, it was decided that a survey of the profession should be launched in order to obtain the widest possible set of views in relation to a CLAF.

This survey is an important step in the development of the assessment of the viability of a CLAF and proposals for progressing its implementation if sufficient support exists.

This survey will take approximately 10 minutes. It will close at 12:00 pm on 9 January 2017 and all responses will be treated confidentially and only reported on at an aggregate level.

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is now offering to extend current contingency contracts, which were due to expire on 10 January 2017, to 31 March 2017. Providers have until 30 June to accept the offer.

The LAA said: “This extension is needed so that we can:

allow the tender process and mobilisation period to be completed so providers can prepare for a new crime contract in 2017

ensure continuity of crime services from 11 January 2017 to the start date of the replacement crime contract Letters will be issued to all Crime Contingency Contract holders shortly. Providers will have until 23.59 on 30 June to accept the contract extension. “Any providers who do not accept the extension will retain a contract to the current end date of 10 January 2017.”

The LAA also announced that it had entered into a three week consultation with representative bodies on the content of the 2017 Standard Crime Contract on 8 June 2016. A spokesperson for the agency confirmed that the representative bodies are the Law Society, Bar Council, Legal Aid Practitioners Group and Advice Services Alliance.

As reported in the ‘Gazette’, a Law Society spokesperson said: “We are expecting the contract to be largely uncontroversial, mainly reflecting changes proposed in the draft 2015 contracts when the Legal Aid Agency drafted “own” and “duty” contracts for the two-tier arrangements.

“The Society has been working with the practitioner groups and the LAA to try to find a mechanism to mitigate the problem of “ghost” duty solicitors by tightening up the rules to ensure that only those currently active in criminal law can act as duty solicitors.”

Also quoted in the ‘Gazette’, Zoe Gascoyne, chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association, regretted the fact that the CLSA and the LCCSA were not statutory consultees. LCCSA president Greg Foxsmith said the association has “made the case for duty solicitor slots to remain with individual solicitors, rather than firms,” adding “with over 1,000 members in London desperate to know what the provisions of the proposed new contracts [are], it is bizarre that the LCCSA is not consulted but instead the Bar Council is invited to comment.”

One may ask why this last minute rush to deal with a well flagged matter. Could it be that the all consuming hustings for the referendum has led politicians, of all colours, to take their eyes off the ball of routine government business. Be grateful that we have a diligent, highly professional civil service to see that essential business is maintained.

]]>http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/crime-contingency-contracts/feed0LAA loses legal aid contract challengehttp://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/laa-loses-legal-aid-contract-challenge
http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/laa-loses-legal-aid-contract-challenge#commentsTue, 24 May 2016 13:19:47 +0000http://www.anyadesigns.co.uk/uppercase/?p=2714At a hearing in the High Court last week the Legal Aid Agency’s (LAA) decision not to allow a London firm, MK Law Solicitors, to join an additional duty solicitor scheme was quashed.

The case arose out of reforms sought to be brought into effect by the Lord Chancellor to the provision of criminal legal aid. A policy of two-tier contracting was proposed to be introduced whereby criminal legal aid solicitors would be able to provide services to their own clients under an “own client contract” and separately under a “duty contract.” Awarded by competition, the duty contracts gave firms of solicitors that were successful the right to be on the duty legal aid rota in 85 procurement areas around the country.

Duty contracts allowed a limited number of firms to represent new entrants to the criminal justice system. Some 1,600 firms secured own client contracts. The intention of duty contracts for duty provider work (DPW) was to offer some 527 DPW contracts with the objective of forcing consolidation in the criminal legal aid market. It was hoped that if fewer larger firms performed DPW that service could be provided at less cost to the LAA.

The process of introducing the new dual contracts scheme was controversial and the results of the tendering process were the subject of litigation. On 28 January 2016 the Lord Chancellor announced in a written statement to Parliament that the dual contracting model was not to be proceeded with. The LAA was to extend current contracts so as to ensure continuing service until replacement contracts came into force late in 2016.

MK Law Solicitors had won 10 duty provider contracts in London, including four in north London. After the new 2015 crime contracts were scrapped, MK Law Solicitors sought to join additional duty schemes in the London Borough of Hackney and surrounding areas until replacement contracts come into force.

The judgment, MK Law Solicitors v Lord Chancellor, states that admission to the additional duty scheme was contingent on successful firms meeting certain criteria set out by the agency. The claimant’s case was that it came within the criteria set out; it was successful in the duty provider contract, had opened an office in Hackney at 2 Underwood Row, and had employed supervisors and staff to deliver criminal legal aid at its Hackney office.

The LAA said the firm was not eligible to be included in any additional duty scheme because the firm’s north London office had been operational since 2012 but this was contested. Ruling that the agency erred in its application of the criteria, Mrs Justice Patterson DBE said it was ‘clear from the evidence’ that the north London office was set up to be able to provide advice to clients if required. There was no contractual requirement that an office had to be manned and open for walk-in trade.

Patterson accepted the firm’s submission that to impose such a requirement was both irrational and a breach of contract as it had no ability to deliver criminal legal aid services from Hackney until the new contract had commenced. The firm invested further time and money to establish a fully functioning office in anticipation of the original duty contract start date. The office became fully operational in December 2015.

Patterson’s conclusion was that the evidence was sufficient to lead to a quashing order of the decision of the LAA regarding MK Law Solicitors. The full text of the judgement is at :